It opened—for him—
as for the Great Guest.
The roots remembered his tread,
and knew their favorite child had returned.
The prince dismissed his beasts,
but true to their nature, they stubbornly stayed.
The wolves did not leave.
The birds did not rise.
The hog did not run for safety.
No rites were spoken.
No Herald named.
But the vines made way—
an escort of green.
He looked down upon a child
who had taken a treat
behind his mother’s back,
and now faced the Forest’s justice.
And as the Forest reached to kill,
he spoke words of humility.
And the Forest wept—
releasing the boy, Noah, to him,
ever to be his ward.
The pilgrims wept.
The priest screamed heresy.
But the mother followed,
as if she’d always known him—
for she had.
Chen slept fitfully that night.
Wolves ringed the camp like sentries.
A brooding hog lurked just beyond the coals.
And his two companions shifted nearby—
one of whom snored with impossible persistence.
Joya had once called it her night-singing.
He supposed there were worse lullabies.
They all rose at sunset to pack their things and eat.
Everyone eyed the nervous hog when breakfast was mentioned.
“Don’t worry, buddy.”
Chen pointed down the hill, toward the faint lights of the town.
“I think you’ve served your purpose. Go off. Populate. Be free.”
He waved a hand.
“Get. Shoo.”
The pig didn’t move.
It shook its head.
Then stomped one hoof—firm, deliberate, impertinent.
Chen sighed.
It was his pig now, apparently.
“You guys too,” he said, turning to the wolves.
“Really. Thank you for your stalwartness—very helpful with the cultists.”
The wolves didn’t budge.
One yawned. Another stretched.
Then they reformed their flanking formation like royal guards.
Chen stared at them.
The wolves looked almost amused.
Chen glanced up.
A low branch hung overhead—just above the clearing’s edge.
The Great Owl sat there, still as stone.
It turned its head.
And shook it once.
Chen winced.
“Traitors, the lot of you.”
“Ja—” Joya coughed, clearing his throat.
“You’re the freakin’ chosen one now, Chen. Don’t expect your guard to quit.”
He said it in perfect, unbroken Common—crisp, clean, almost noble.
Chen blinked.
Then just stared at him.
“What the fuck? Who are you right now?”
Joya shrugged, casual.
“What? You think I talk natural around those bastards? They hate Fronicans.”
He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Gloria, still packing her bag, just chuckled.
Chen shook his head, still staring at him.
“I kinda want the old Joya back…”
His voice softened.
“Everything’s always fucking changing lately.”
The last words barely made it past his breath.
They made their way down the trail—
a narrow corridor, wide enough for two wagons side by side.
Not natural. Not ancient.
Freshly parted, the soil still damp from root-recoil.
On either side, the crowd watched.
Quiet. Reverent.
As if witnessing a procession they hadn’t agreed to.
The path stayed open two hundred meters ahead of them at all times,
never more, never less.
And it didn’t close behind.
Chen risked a glance back—
the trail still clear,
stretching all the way to the western woodline
and eastward, toward the place where Kildra’s lab had once stood.
Chen glanced down at the path beneath his boots—
fresh soil, flattened bark, a trail that shouldn’t exist.
He already understood the economic effect.
A road like this, connecting east and west?
It would shift trade lines, expose new borders,
cut through old guild routes like a knife.
He wasn’t looking forward to handling
whoever it pissed off.
But that was a problem for future Chen.
Right now,
he had to deal with them.
They approached the edge of the Clearing—
where a squad of eight guards stood waiting, spears raised.
One shouted:
“Halt!”
Chen slowed.
Behind the guards, he could see two—maybe three—magistrates
hovering like flies behind the muscle.
Their robes were too clean for this part of the Forest.
Then the vines to either side of the trail shifted.
They arched inward, thickening—twisting together into a high gate.
Two braided doors sealed the arch with almost bureaucratic precision.
“The Forest’s feeling considerate today,” Chen muttered.
A whisper answered in his head:
“Yes. Security… theatre.”
He blinked.
“Was that a joke?” he asked aloud.
“What?” Joya snapped, alarmed.
“No one said anything.”
“The Forest,” Chen said, frowning.
“It has a sense of humor, apparently.”
“No!” Joya gasped, as if scandalized.
“It’s sentient and sapient,” Gloria murmured, just loud enough for them to hear.
“Why wouldn’t it have a sense of humor?”
They were nearly upon the guards now.
Spears hadn’t lowered.
From behind the lead two guards, the magistrates stepped forward—
three Greenwards, their moss-dyed robes stiff with formality.
They moved as one, practiced in pageantry,
the soldiers parting for them with the slow grace of a ritual rehearsal.
Chen gave it a solid seven, by old company standards.
The timing was good. The pivot lacked conviction.
The eldest of the three raised his voice across the distance.
He didn’t bother to close the gap.
“Who are you,” he called, sharp and theatrical,
“and what sorcery is this?”
Chen shifted, but before he could speak,
Gloria leaned toward him and murmured:
“Let me handle it. Stay quiet.”
She stepped forward—not aggressively, but with a diplomat’s poise.
“We are weary Delvers from the eastern ruins,” she called back,
“guided here by the Forest’s will.
We request audience with Verdant Moxley,
at the earliest allowance, good Greenwards.”
The Greenward looked startled at the request—
a request any of the faithful had a right to make, by long-held convention.
He narrowed his eyes at Gloria,
scanning her with barely concealed discomfort.
A mutt, he decided—sharp-tongued and half-blooded.
Dangerous only in her knowledge.
He turned to his companions,
whispering behind one palm, glancing again at the beasts behind her.
Then he stepped forward and raised his voice:
“You’ve caused a scene and brought chaos—”
he gestured broadly to the forest road behind them,
“—to the Clearing.”
“Lay down your arms and prepare to be detained for heresy.
You will see the Verdant… at your trial.”
Gloria startled.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
Sheltered for most of her life—first by her grandfather, then her husband—
she’d never been forced to see the world’s cracks quite this close.
She realized too late:
this wasn’t just fear.
It was a grudge,
and a political play wrapped in sacred cloth.
Chen stepped forward.
The wolves moved with him, closing the thirty-meter gap by ten.
Not enough to provoke.
But enough to make the guards recalculate their courage.
He shifted into first position and activated his Ji.
The air changed.
Atmospheric pressure collapsed inward, thick as water.
A ring of vines burst from the soil—coiling beside the guards,
tight, alert, ready to strike.
Sixty meters of kill radius.
Total silence—except for the hum of plasma in his hand.
Pilgrims at the border of the Clearing began to murmur.
They’d seen saints before.
They hadn’t seen this.
Chen’s voice was quiet.
Almost kind.
“I will say this once.
I have been a prisoner for many years.
The Forest released me.
I will not be caged again.
Stand aside—or be made to.”
The Greenwards froze.
They were learned men.
They recognized what few had ever seen in real life:
a living Ji, active and ancient—
and now pointed at their throats.
The eldest tried to recover,
shouting with the last fragments of borrowed authority:
“That artifact is Vowed property!
It belongs to the Green and the Root—
not to one such as yourself!
Men—take them into custody! Now!”
“Belay that.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
A new voice rang out—
firm, even, solid as oak.
The guards looked relieved.
And stepped back.
Not in fear. In relief.
As if the moment they’d been dreading had arrived—and saved them from themselves.
A shadow moved behind them.
Then parting vines.
And through that living arch, he stepped:
Verdant Moxley.
Tall. Broad-shouldered.
His dark green robes were wrinkled from travel,
but still hung in careful lines—like they obeyed him.
His steps were quiet.
But the path responded—flattening beneath his feet, root by root.
He carried no weapon.
Behind him came two more Greenwards.
Not like the first three.
These moved with stillness.
Reserved. Holy. Stoit.
Each wore a short blade at the hip.
Art Nouveau–crafted swords—each looking like leaves made of steel.
Moxley’s eyes swept the scene.
He read it instantly.
He stopped just behind the original Greenwards,
turned to face the arching vines,
bowed his head in a soft prayer—
Then, aloud:
“Forgive us this ugliness.”
The vines responded.
They loosened, recoiled, and slipped back into the earth.
He turned next to the guards.
“Stand down. Return to post.”
They didn’t hesitate.
Relief moved them faster than orders ever had.
Chen gestured in return.
The wolves peeled away, circling back to flank Gloria and Joya.
The owl descended in silence,
landing on Chen’s shoulder,
still perched in first stance—
but softened now, as if mimicking the man who held it.
“You better not shit on me,” he whispered to the owl.
He didn’t hear laughter.
He felt it—somewhere deep and feathered, curling at the edges of his soul.
“What madness have you three brought down on us now?”
Moxley’s voice cut across the clearing, directed at the Greenwards—
who now looked everywhere but at him.
“To the barracks. We will have words.”
He stepped forward, both hands open, palm out—
a gesture of disarmament and good will.
Then, softer, as his gaze swept the beasts:
“I welcome a son of the Forest.”
He offered a small bow, waist-deep, measured, reverent.
A wolf stepped forward.
Not at Chen’s command.
It moved with its own mind, its own intent—
sniffing gently at the elf’s outstretched hands.
Moxley froze, thinking.
Then simply shrugged and offered his palm.
The wolf sniffed once.
Licked it, once.
Then stepped back.
A slow smile broke across Moxley’s face.
“Incredible,” he breathed.
“The Forest… it loves you.”
Chen finally relaxed.
Shifted to parade rest.
And stepped forward to clasp Moxley’s forearm, wrist to wrist.
“We’re friendly.”
Only then did Moxley look past Chen—
to the ones standing behind.
His eyes widened.
“Joya? Gloria?”
The title fell away.
The Verdant vanished.
And for a moment, he was just a man in the Forest.
“Little sister!”
He crossed the clearing in three long strides,
and swept Gloria into a bone-deep bear hug.
“Let go of me! You big bear!” Gloria yelped, mock anger in her voice as Moxley spun her once before setting her down.
He turned to Joya, grinning, and threw one arm around him in a quick side-hug.
“And you, brother… how?” He whispered
“He’s prophecy, Mox,” Joya said simply, in a low whisper of his own.
“I’ve seen it.”
Gloria sighed—the kind of sigh that carried years of knowing better and still getting swept along.
She looked at Chen.
Chen looked back, helpless.
He shrugged.
He tried.
But the Forest wasn’t letting him off the hook.
Moxley returned to Chen’s side.
The celebration faded.
An awkward silence hung between the four of them—Moxley, Gloria, Joya, Chen.
None quite sure what the moment had become.
Chen broke it.
“Look,” he said, steady but not unkind.
“I’m not part of your religion.
I’m not a messiah.
I’m not chosen.
And I sure as hell don’t want to be.”
He let it sit for a breath, then added:
“I came here to eat.
Maybe find work.
Build a house.
That’s the extent of my ambition.
Am I understood?”
“Oh. Umm—clearly,” Moxley said, glancing toward the treeline.
“But… the elders will want to meet you.”
He raised one hand, gesturing behind them—toward the waiting pilgrims, the murmuring crowd.
“If not for yourself… then for them.”
From the border of the Clearing, voices drifted up like smoke:
“Moxley accepts him!”
“It’s Gru returned!”
“He is the Dryad—look, he communes with beast and bird!”
Behind them, the pyre burned—quiet, constant.
It hadn’t moved.
But Chen could feel it.
Watching.
Waiting.
Chen sighed.
A long morning.
Getting longer.
“Can we just go?” he muttered.
“Yeah, I’m pretty h’ngry meself,” Joya added, slipping effortlessly into his pigeon dialect.
“Ha! Caught you!” Moxley barked, laughing as they began walking again.
The wolves circled the four of them like honor guard.
The boar followed, snorting contentedly.
The owl stayed perched on Chen’s shoulder—
—a shoulder now freshly coated in white shit.
Chen didn’t react.
He just kept walking.
They entered through the newly formed arch—
already dubbed by someone “Gru’s Triumph.”
The name had stuck fast.
Crowds pressed in as they walked,
surrounding the slow parade of beasts, companions, and myth.
Moxley’s guards kept the path clear—barely.
Pilgrims reached out, desperate to touch Chen,
but the wolves kept them back, maintaining a five-meter perimeter with ruthless precision.
Now and then, a jaw snapped in warning.
Someone yelped. The line held.
“Don’t hurt anyone, guys,” Chen murmured to the wolves as they passed.
Above them, the hawks made their appearance—
circling once before landing on roofs, barrels, even vendor stalls.
To the onlookers, it looked like ceremony.
To the hawks, it was crowd control.
Chen walked beside Moxley as they passed the Pyre.
He slowed.
Something in him… pulled.
Moxley noticed.
“Our greatest father, Gru, gave himself back to the Forest here.
The pyre’s been burning ever since.
Five hundred years, at least.”
Chen didn’t speak at first.
Then he glanced at the flames—
and at Moxley.
“More like a hundred and fifty.”
Moxley stiffened, just slightly.
“I assure you, our records are well maintained.”
“Really?”
Chen couldn’t help it. The memories were coming faster now—
and they didn’t match anything.
“Myrsport was a village when he died, right?”
“Yes! Our proud neighbor to the south—just a village back then.
Gru helped build it himself!”
“Right,” Chen said, walking slowly around the Pyre’s edge.
“It’s not five hundred years old.”
He stopped at a bend in the flame—where the hue shifted, blue lapping at a mound of charred vine.
“Gloria,” he said, motioning.
“There. Those are your Calders.”
Golden Age metal. Embedded tech. Endless libraries.
All buried beneath the flame.
“Many have tried to enter the holy septum,” Moxley said, watching him carefully.
“The Forest won’t allow it.”
Chen had had enough.
He could feel it coming—
the crowd, the politics, the theater rising like heat.
He knew this game.
And what he needed wasn’t martial power.
It wasn’t borrowed power.
It was people.
Their belief. Their awe.
Their memory.
He made his decision.
“Hey buddy,” he said, looking at the Pyre.
“Can you knock this down for a second?”
A pause.
Then, a voice—low and ancient, brushing his bones.
“Is. It. Time?”
Chen didn’t answer right away.
The Calders were buried there—
intact, glowing, waiting.
The secrets inside could rebuild a world.
Or shatter it.
The Forest knew this.
The Chakalexia could return.
History was not a safe thing.
But Chen didn’t need the Calders.
Not yet.
He just needed a show.
“No. Not time yet,” he said aloud, louder now—letting others hear the one-sided exchange.
“But the flames should go down. Just for a moment.”
The Pyre answered.
Not with silence.
With spectacle.
The flame collapsed inward, folding like glass under breath.
It didn’t fade.
It detonated in reverse—a burst of cooling brilliance that left the air shimmering and the earth ringing.
A wide, open path remained.
Smoke curled at its edges like fingers withdrawn.
“Watch. Vines.
Thermodynamics will kill you… again.”
The Forest’s voice was dry.
Chen smiled.
Hushes rippled through the crowd.
Awe followed.
Then silence.
Even Moxley looked shaken—
his world, his records, his theology all trembling at the edges.
“Ah, fu’k…” Joya muttered under his breath.
Not cursing the moment.
Just understanding it.
Gloria.
Gloria lunged.
She surged forward, straight for the heart of the Pyre.
Straight for the Calders.
Chen’s hand landed on her shoulder like a vice—gentle, firm, unmovable.
“My Calders!” Gloria hissed, twisting under his grip like a caught fish.
“We had an agreement, Chen!
Knowledge is mine—mine!”
Chen didn’t let go.
He just smiled.
“In due time, Gloria.
Not now.”
With a simple upward motion of his hand,
the flame reignited—
rising in a smooth column of heat and light,
sealing the septum once more.
By the time they reached the Bazaar proper,
half the day was gone.
It sprawled in rings beyond the pyre—
the actual reason the Clearing existed at all.
Where better for wealthy merchants to sell to the masses
than at a site of worship?
Greens in martial dress wandered the corridors,
leaf-and-vine emblems stitched to their right shoulders.
They called it “peacekeeping,”
but it looked more like a slow-motion parade of political allegiance.
The Forest, after all, handled most justice on its own.
Outright theft was rare here.
Only the desperate—or the profoundly stupid—ever tried.
More often, one was robbed by fine print, inflated prices, or bad faith.
In the wild Forest, only the strong survived.
Here, in the Clearing?
Only the clever did.
And one ten-year-old boy, named Noah,
was not clever enough.
A root burst from the floor beneath him—
silent, sudden—
and wrapped him in a breathless caress,
dragging him back slowly into the earth with quiet finality.
His mother turned just in time to see it.
Her scream tore through the market—
not fear.
Grief.
“Momma! Momma! I’m sorry, Momma! Help me!”
Noah’s voice cut through the hush like a knife.
People turned.
Watched.
But did not move.
They’d seen it before.
And they always looked away.
To attack a vine was to attack the Forest.
To forget your place.
To forfeit your life.
“Forest, it t’was a gift!” the merchant shouted, hands raised in protest.
It made no difference.
The Forest’s judgment, once passed, did not retreat.
“T’was a gift!”
A phrase repeated through generations—when the vines came for your child, and you needed someone to believe you.
“Please, great For’st!”
His mother clawed at the root, pulling until her fingers bled.
“Take me instead! He dunno much! He’s just a child!”
Tears ran freely, streaking down her cheeks, mixing with the mud caked to her trembling hands.
Noah’s body was nearly gone—
only his face visible now,
mouth and nose tilted up toward the air.
“Momma,” he whispered.
“I love you, Momma. I’m sorry.”
Chen heard it.
And turned.
He rushed to the edge of the vine and dropped to one knee.
“No,” he whispered.
“He’s just a child.”
There was a pause.
Then a whisper—not like the Forest’s voice.
This was colder.
More precise.
“Directions given. Directions processed.”
A node, he realized.
A subroutine.
This wasn’t will. It was code.
“Forest,” he said aloud, voice trembling.
“What are you?”
A pause.
Then:
“Old.”
Chen felt his stomach turn.
“Don’t do this,” he said.
“This is not right.”
Chen’s voice cracked—half fury, half grief.
He didn’t see a stranger in that child.
He saw his own.
And in the weeping mother,
he saw Leah.
Not weeping. Not begging.
But standing—
cold-eyed and fire-backed,
doing anything, everything, to keep her children safe.
To keep her people safe.
She was a lady of the House, yes—
but never one for lace or tea.
She didn’t smile sweetly.
She calculated, even in love.
She didn’t yield for comfort.
She didn’t give in for convenience.
What she gave—she meant.
What she held—she held with fire.
That’s what he’d fallen for.
Not her softness—
her certainty.
She would have cut through gods and governors alike,
if that was the cost of preserving what she built.
And he had adored her for it.
Still adored her for it.
He knew nothing of what had happened.
He hadn’t heard her voice in days.
But in his mind, she remained the axis.
The truth he walked toward.
This couldn’t stand.
Chen rose.
And activated his Ji.
The hum roared out from him in a pulse of heat and memory.
The pilgrims gasped.
Some recoiled.
Others bowed.
“Is this heresy?” one whispered.
“Or command?” another answered.
The phrase spread, murmured mouth to mouth like wildfire.
“Release him. Now!” Chen shouted.
The vine twitched.
“Override requested?” it asked.
“Yes! Now!”
The boy’s nose was almost gone—mouth just barely above the soil.
And then—
With a surge upward, the vine sprouted violently back.
It released the child, who spilled free into his mother’s arms.
She screamed.
Not in grief—
but in joy.
Moxley rushed to her side, kneeling beside mother and child.
“It’s a miracle,” he whispered, again and again,
checking the boy’s breath, smoothing the mother’s hair.
“A miracle.”
The woman looked up at Chen, tears still streaking her face.
“Lord,” she said, collapsing to her knees,
“me life and his is yours.”
Chen blinked.
She had a cute face.
And a beautiful body, especially for someone so underfed.
Where the hell did that come from?
He shoved the thought down like it never happened.
“Come on, lady,” he said, stepping in quickly.
“Maria,” she whispered, her voice small, almost uncertain.
“My name is Maria.”
Chen blinked.
“Okay, Maria.”
His tone softened.
“Let’s get you somewhere safe.”
Pilgrims were descending—
not to help,
but to touch her.
To whisper blessings.
To place tokens at her feet as if she had become sacred by proximity.
Chen gestured firmly to Moxley.
Time to move.
Together, they began walking again—
toward the Tree,
where the Greens held court.
They moved on, toward the Tree,
the crowd parting in waves, murmuring like surf.
The boy’s mother stayed close to Chen now—silent, trembling, watched.
Behind them, back by the market’s edge,
the three original Greenwards regrouped.
One spat into the dirt.
Another adjusted his robe, sneering at the crowd still kneeling.
The third leaned in, voice low:
“It’s worse than heresy.”
“It’s succession.”
The others nodded.
“We must tell the Vizier.”
One looked toward the Tree.
The other—back toward the flame.
And so the Bazaar bore witness,
and the Pyre bowed to his will.
The child was spared, the mother marked,
and those who saw it forgot how to trade.
He did not take a name.
Yet the name took him.
Gru. Dryad. Saint. Returner.
Even the Greens whispered it—
though they called it poison.
They sent word to the Vizier,
for the throne beneath the Tree
still bore the mark of a man
who had not yet died.
And now, they feared,
he had come home.